


The Yard

by Amber_and_Ash



Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen, Gibbs' Mexican siesta
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-02-25 12:36:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2622023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amber_and_Ash/pseuds/Amber_and_Ash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Gibbs lost his memory and left them, the team isn't doing very well. Tony is left with no choice but to report Tim and Ziva's insubordination. This makes no-one happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my indulgence, and won't be on a regular update cycle. Expect it to be massively multi-crossover as the series progresses (although added in slowly), with pretty much every cliche added in and stirred.  
> This section is NCIS only, and can be fairly described as an everyone-but-Tony bashing.

Tony hadn’t wanted to be the supervisory agent in charge, but he had no choice. No choice with Gibbs running off to Mexico and abandoning them. No choice if he wanted to keep the team together long enough for Gibbs to recover and come home. No choice if he ever wanted things to go back to normal. But he hadn’t wanted it, and as time wore on, he was coming closer and closer to throwing in the towel. It was becoming increasingly obvious that he didn’t have the skills to lead his frat brothers to a kegger and there was no one he could turn to for advice.

He grimaced as he went over yet another piece of paperwork that had to be corrected. Tim wasn’t coping with his own promotion any better than Tony was. Both Tim’s own reports and his reviews of the team’s reports were too critical of their TAD and not critical enough of Ziva. Worse, he was so damn defensive about anything that Tony said that he wasn’t improving at all. So instead of simply reviewing, Tony was stuck here after hours, redoing the paperwork himself. Tony shook himself out of those thoughts. He’d been doing both his own paperwork and Gibbs for years, so it wasn’t like this was much of a change. He wasn’t really upset with them being careless in the office. He was upset with how careless the two of them were getting in the field. There were times to play fast and loose with the rules, but that wasn’t all the time. His increasingly strong orders were being dismissed because he was ‘just a cop’ and ‘Gibbs would have done it that way’.

He’d blown up at them that day (well, the previous day, now), and they’d done the unthinkable. They’d walked out on him. It showed him that it was time to stop hoping and pretending. Doing the paperwork now was just procrastinating the difficult task. He pushed it aside and started the printer on other ones  -- official write-ups for failure to follow orders and insubordination. It wasn’t as bad as it sounded. NCIS allowed for escalating concerns, and these wouldn’t go into their ‘permanent records’, to use a childish but accurate expression. Six months in the files without further action, and they’d be deleted. He wasn’t going to be damaging their careers permanently, and Gibbs could clean it up when he got back. There wasn’t any good excuse not to report them, and every reason in the world to do so. It wasn’t like their relationships could get any worse. Tony grimly did his duty.

He was ready when Director Shepard arrived, and managed to sweet talk the secretary into the before-hours slot.

“What can I do for you, Tony?”

“I’m afraid I’m having a problem I need some help with. I’m going to file some complaints against Agent McGee and Officer David and I’d like you to have a word with them about it. They’ve been crossing the line lately, and they need to be pulled up.”

She leaned back and looked at him archly. “Are you telling me you’re incapable of managing this on your own, Agent DiNozzo?”

“Yes.”

The director looked taken aback. She’d probably intended the question as a way of dismissing his concerns, but Tony didn’t care. There was nothing left she could punish him with. Considering how close he was to quitting, being asked to step down would be a reward, not a threat.

Shepard said, “Then perhaps the undercover work we have been discussing should also be given to someone more capable. Someone more deserving of being part of such a big operation, and the future consequences of having it in their records.”

Did she really think he’d care about that? Yeah, he knew he was always enthusiastic about undercover operations, but it wasn’t because he wanted a shiny new entry to his file. Tony had thought the director had understood his appreciation for a job well done, but he was starting to think he'd been misreading her all along if she tried this kind of bullshit on him.

“Perhaps it should,” he said. “I'm sure there are dozens of young agents equally well suited.”

He smiled insincerely and pretended not to notice the flash of rage on her face. Damn it, that had been stupid. He was asking for a favour here, it was hardly the time for point scoring. He took a deep breath and continued in a more conciliatory tone.  “I am very grateful to you for allowing us to keep the team together this way, and I appreciate how many problems it caused. But even more important than keeping us together is continuing our development along the proper paths. David and McGee aren’t responding to orders on a crime scene and we’re risking someone getting killed. That needs to be stopped, even if it means you have to move someone else in as Supervisory Agent.”

She softened her voice to match. “I know it’s been difficult on you all, but you have to give yourselves time to adjust.”

Tony figured they weren’t going to get anywhere if they continued to talk around the issue. “Give ourselves time, or give Gibbs time to come back?”

Director Shepard looked away, and all Tony's suspicions were confirmed. It was what he'd been expecting – what he'd wanted, in fact – but that didn't stop him from being annoyed at the manipulation. It was followed by a rather belated realisation as to why she was so against the idea of demoting him again.“You can't call anyone else in. You need me to remain Supervisory Agent, because anyone else would object to Gibbs taking the team back. That's why you allowed me to jump the queue and take team lead.”

“Agent DiNozzo…”

“I don’t mind being the temporary stand-in, Director. But I do mind being asked to be responsible for doing a job that I’m not doing. You need to bring them in and sort them out, or appoint another Supervisory Agent.”

“I still think you’re overreacting, and involving me might push them into an irrevocable step. They’re already unsettled and if they leave, Gibbs won’t have a team to come back to.”

“If they’re not pulled up, Gibbs won’t have agents to come back to. He’ll have cowboys.”

“That’s enough, DiNozzo. I have full confidence in them. I believe your concerns are unwarranted.”

“With all due respect, Ma’am, you can’t order me not to report them. It is my duty to do so.”

“Go ahead and report them. You can't require me to investigate it.”

“I see. Thank you for your time, Director.”

He had said he would, so Tony dropped off the copies of the paperwork on the secretaries’ desk on the way out. With a guarantee of no follow up, he knew they it wasn’t going to be of any use, but there was nothing else left for him to do.

* * *

 

True to what the director had said, he never heard anything further concerning his complaints. In addition, as threatened, there were no further discussions about undercover drug operations. Tony supposed he ought to feel guilty about letting some other poor sap take the risks, but he felt too relieved that he didn’t have to split his focus. He needed all his attention, because true to what he himself had said, Tim and Ziva were getting worse.

Tony had seen it before in the police. It wasn't unheard of for a cop to cross the line and get away with it. Despite how  superiors and internal investigators tended to portray themselves, they weren't heartless martinets. If the actions were against the rules but justified, they'd do their best to look the other way. But some cops – perhaps those who had a particular type of personality, perhaps simply those to whom it had happened too often – took the wrong message from that. They thought it meant they had the right to cross the line. They thought their superiors owed it to them to cover up for them.

Left long enough, this attitude would inevitably go wrong. Gibbs might have been able to keep a lid on things with his connections and his sheer force of personality, but as they were constantly reminding him, Tony wasn't Gibbs. If it went wrong on Tony, there would be innocents caught in the crossfire. He knew that it would destroy his own career of course, but that would be appropriate. He was supposed to have control of his agents and he didn’t. He wasn’t doing his job and could take his punishment for that. But what kept him awake at night was the thought that it might not stop at that. Even something short of the worst case scenario of body bags and grieving family members could still be catastrophic. Tony refused to allow every scumbag he’d ever testified against to be able to use that future catastrophe as an excuse to appeal their sentences. Since he wouldn't be able to prevent the fall out, the best he could do was keep it contained. He needed to establish a paper trail that the problem was isolated to the junior members of the team and recent in origin.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The processes detailed below are entirely invented. I don’t know what the actual one are, but I can’t imagine the NCIS universe could mirror any real life ones without firing most of the cast.

It wasn’t the first time Balboa had suggested they go out for a drink, but the timing made Tony suspicious. Consequently it was a surprise but not a shock when Balboa dumped some files in front of him. “For your collection on the Wonder Twins.”

Tony breathed through his nose for a count of eight. “Is what I’m doing common knowledge?”

“We’re not gossiping about, but you can’t access the files you have been accessing without someone checking that it’s on the up-and-up.”

It was a curious sign that the unofficial monitoring of his actions had involved Balboa but not the director. Tony wasn’t unfamiliar with an organisation closing ranks against outsiders, but Shepard had come up through the ranks. She  should have had half a dozen former team mates willing to have a quiet word with her. “Just the senior agents, then?”

“It’s spreading on a need-to-know basis outside of NCIS, so expect a few more anonymous hints.”

Tony’s lips quirked at the implication that this was anything approaching anonymous, but his heart wasn’t in it. “You’re not here to tell me I shouldn’t be doing this, and that a good leader keeps it within the team?”

“I know you,  so I know that you’ve already tried that. And you know that all the ‘don’t show weakness’ stuff of Gibbs is bullshit. You’re not an animal trainer or a prison warden. You’re supposed to be able to assume they want to work with you to be better agents. When they don’t want that any more? It’s your job to cut the ties.”

“I… well, I’m not saying it’s all my responsibility, but you can’t deny that if Gibbs was here they wouldn’t be doing this shit. They just aren’t coping well with me in charge. They don’t think I’m showing them the respect they deserve.”

“Then it definitely isn’t just a problem with Gibbs being gone. Gibbs has many fine traits, but showing other people respect isn’t one of them. You don’t have that problem.”

“Balboa, have you met my smart arse?”

Balboa laughed, but stood up. “Yep, and what a smart arse it is. Look, I’m afraid don’t have time this evening to listen to you play devil’s advocate with yourself. You already know what you need to do. You’re a good man, and a good agent. And never repeat that I said anything that Hallmark to anyone.”

Tony laughed obediently. “Sure. Thanks, Balboa.”

Balboa didn’t reference the matter again, either explicitly or by implication, but he’d been right about other hints coming into his possession, with various degrees of actual anonymity. Tony thought that if it hadn’t been for that, he might have chickened out. He might have convinced himself that it wasn’t that bad, and besides, Gibbs  would be back soon (he would, Tony knew that, no matter what the whispers in the dark said) and Gibbs could fix it all then. But the complaints were that bad, and some pre-dated Gibbs leaving. Gibbs at his best had been letting things slide, so it was unfair to expect of him to take responsibility for it all at his worst. Tony would have to be the bad guy, instead of playing the ‘just you wait until your father gets home’ game. For the sake of NCIS and the people they were sworn to protect.

* * *

He hesitated at the door to HR until a member took pity on him and escorted him to a private office. “What can I do for you, Agent DiNozzo?”

“Mister Greene. I have some… concerns that may be brought up in a future trial. Obviously, I hope it will never come to that. If it does, however, I have reason to fear that the NCIS might be accused of tacitly supporting, or worse, actively endorsing prohibited and illegal methods in investigations.”

“You certainly have my attention. What was it you were hoping I could do?”

“I’m not entirely sure what your role is supposed to be in cases like these, but I guess what I’m looking for is a witness. In the best case so that the agents concerned realise the severity of what they are doing. In the worst case so that someone can testify that they were advised against their actions in the proper way, and their actions aren’t representative of NCIS as a whole. Just in case, you know. If it ever does come do that.”

“Have you consulted with the Director or IA?”

“The Director believes the situation will resolve itself. I am somewhat more cautious. I do not believe it falls within IA’s remit, however.” Tony didn't like feeling he was talking like a politician, but this was politics at the end of the day. It wasn’t catching bad guys or helping good guys. It was pure C.Y.A., because the cynical side of him didn’t believe a word about McGee and Ziva realising the severity of their actions, or he wouldn’t be here in the first place.

The HR guy frowned at him. “What exactly are we talking about, Agent?”

Tony abandoned the rest of his planned introductory speech and simply handed over the two folders. He’d pruned back the documentation that had found it’s way into Tony’s possession a little, but not much. This is what they’d all earned, and it was passed the time of hiding it.

Greene stared at him for a moment, but obediently paged through the top one. Then he sat down and started reading carefully,  spreading them out on his desk as he did so. Tony leaned against a wall, not bothering to look. He knew what they said, and had been shocked enough himself at their volume. Both had reprimands for insubordination in the field, for negligence in processing evidence, and for disregarding proper process.  ‘MCGEE, Timothy’ had additional complaints for being detected hacking into other government agencies.  ‘DAVID, Ziva’ had complaints for threatening behaviour to a witness, possessing illegal equipment and sexual harassment (the last of which Tony appreciated the irony of, considering he himself had never picked up one).

“Christ on a stick, DiNozzo! I’d heard rumours, but… the director knows about this?”

“You are more than welcome to consult with her yourself on the matter.” Tony realised he’d let a little of his bitterness through, but couldn’t bring himself to care.

Greene picked up one of the stacks he’d made and handed it over, waving Tony to the chair at the same time. “I can’t agree with you about not involving IA, DiNozzo. These ones do rise to the level of professional misconduct.”

Tony flipped through them. “They know about those already, though, surely? I mean, they’re all extra-departmental, so they must have received copies. They’ve clearly chosen not to pursue them. Following up on them depends on the recommendation of the Director, anyway.”

“Well, yes, but even without follow up, it’s not like we can just ignore them entirely. At the very least, the Supervisory Agent has to write up a statement about how their conduct was part of an investigation, and then the agent have to write up a statement justifying their position. That gets sent to us, and we make recommendations about how to avoid the situation in the future. Finally the whole lot has to be signed off by the Supervisory Agent and the relevant Liaison Officer.”

“Really? It was never part of any of the paperwork I used to do for Gibbs, so I didn't even think about it.” Damn it. Tony hadn’t realised that he’d managed to screw up. Why hadn’t anyone called him on it? “How bad is it?”

Greene waved it away. “It hasn’t even been two months on the oldest incurred on your watch yet, don’t worry about it. Everybody drags their feet on these things. But if you say you’ve never done one…”

“Gibbs never mentioned any complaints, but looking back, there must have been. Can you check? I mean, I don’t know about access to files…”

Greene held up his hand and Tony waited obediently while he tapped on his computer. A little later the printer clattered.

“Sign this to give me permission to access you and your team’s files for extra-departmental complaints.”

Tony read it through, but it was exactly what Greene had said. It even limited the access to one week and specified it wasn’t part of a current disciplinary procedure. He signed, and a very short time later Greene had the printer working again.

“Four for you. Three started as RfCs… that is, request-for-clarifications, and were updated to complaints when the clarification wasn’t… ah… forthcoming. Oldest is three years back, now. How are your records?”

“Pretty good. I take it you want statements for all of them?”

“As much as you can. Agent Gibbs should have spoken to you about them, but at the end of the day, it’s your file they’re a black mark in.”

“And the rest of the team will have to do them as well.” Tony could feel another headache coming on. He couldn’t even convince them to do case files properly, how was he going to convince them to do these?

“Yes. You need to write up a brief recommendation for the ones that have occurred since you became Agent in Charge. I’ll give you some anonymised examples we use for training. They need to write up their justifications. You said you wanted a witness?”

Tony frowned, taking a second to remember what Greene was talking about. He had allowed himself to be distracted from his original, more important, concern. The missing paperwork was just more of the same problem, really.

“I think in this case, I can go one better. You’ve requested that I look into this,” he said, tapping the signed form. “So I’ll ask them to write up their statements. We can use that as a springboard to present a personalised plan for them to do their jobs without the prohibited or illegal methods.”

Tony nodded to that, and to all of Greene’s other plans. He wanted to have the optimism that this would be the thing to make it all work out, that the team would take the opportunity and learn to do better. He really did.


	3. Chapter 3

It was not much more than a week later that Greene indicated he was ready to put their plans into action. Tony booked them into a conference room at 9:30am, and made sure to be unavailable until that point so that they couldn't argue about it. They arrived, irritable and irritated. Tony found himself relieved that things weren't bad enough (yet) for them to blow off a scheduled meeting.

“What is this concerning, Tony? Do we not have enough real work without you making things up for us to perform?”

“I know I’ve got plenty of stuff to do, ‘boss’. Calling HR on us is a new low, even for you.”

Tony winced. Not at Tim’s sarcastically drawled ‘boss’ – he was growing immune to the digs about being a fake Gibbs. No, he flinched at Tim being so openly insulting of HR with Greene standing right next to him. He put an edge of reprimand into his voice as he said, “Guys, this is Mister Greene, Mister Greene, Agent McGee, Officer David.”

“Good morning, and thank you for coming.”

Greene maintained a vapid smile and the two responded with thinly veiled contempt. Tony wanted to thump his head against the table. He would have thought Ziva, at least, would have known better than to take anyone at face value. Or failing that, would know better than to let a mark know what she thought of them.

“It wasn’t exactly a choice,” muttered Tim.

Greene ignored the comment. “We are in the process of changing the way we handle professional queries and complaints received from outside the department, and I'm here to talk you through the new process. We are taking the opportunity to catch everyone up on the outstanding matters that had not yet been dealt with using the old system.”

“There was an old system?”

“Indeed, but as you so succinctly point out, one that was underutilised, and gravely in need of overhaul.”

“Or maybe, you know, just discarded altogether.”

Tony hid another wince. He and Gibbs had spent so much time teaching Tim to stand up for himself that it seemed they’d neglected to teach him when it was appropriate to do so. They’d neglected to teach him the difference between emphasising power by disregarding another, and being plain rude without anything to back it up.

“Oh, if we all had our wishes, we would truly have a paper-free office,” said Greene lightly. Tony eyed him. Was the man a previous undercover operative, or was this some sort of administration-fu? Tony wasn’t sure he himself would have been that convincing at ‘misunderstanding’ hostile comments as harmless, and he’d been practicing most of his life.

“I have printed the initial papers out so that I can talk you through the process,” continued Greene, “with some sample responses for providing details of a case, correcting a misconception, an admission of fault, and so on. If you have any questions about the actual contents of the queries, I’m more than happy to set up individual meetings now—”

“That will not be necessary, I believe I am sufficiently capable of computing this out for myself. McGee?”

“Ah, yeah. I’ll be sure to contact you at a later point if I have any questions.”

They had barely rifled through the pages given to them, so it wasn’t even slightly reasonable for them to claim they understood the paperwork. When admin was actually willing to sit down with you to talk you through the system rather than just throw you a manual, it was usually a strong sign that explanations were necessary. If there was anything federal agents should know by this point in their career, was to accept all help with bureaucratese. Correctly interpreting paperwork had nothing to do with intelligence and could really bite you in the ass if you didn’t it wrong.

Greene’s smile sharpened as he pulled two further pieces of paper from his file. “Then if you could sign these confirming you understand the process as has been explained to you?”

They signed without even a hint that they knew it was a high-risk decision, and without even the pretence of checking with Tony. They carried the paperwork they had been given with them when they left, but that was the extent of their co-operation.

“I apologise for their unprofessional conduct, Mister Greene. I should have stepped in.” And taught them better in the first place.

Greene shrugged. “Don't worry about it, it was more or less what we were expecting.”

“Is there really a new process? Agency-wide?”

“For the DC office, at least, yes. Your situation made it clear that it was necessary. We will now go to the individual in question at the same time as the supervisory agent, and escalate if the response is insufficient.”

“Why did you ever go to the supervisory agent first, anyway?”

“I believe the reasoning was that the supervisory agent could provide a more honest opinion if asked first. If the matter was escalated to a criminal investigation at that point, they didn’t want ambiguity in the admissibility of the initial interviews with the agent. Strangely enough, however, it seems that supervisory agents are biased in favour of their own agents.”

“Imagine that,” said Tony dryly.

“We’ve also included automatic escalation policies, so new system is set up to give results if either the supervisor or the agent is willing to put the time in, and bring any habitual disregard to light.”

“I take it Agent Gibbs wasn’t the only person dragging his feet on this matter.”

“Dragging his feet implies that some people made any progress whatsoever.  Naturally I can’t discuss the internal affairs of other teams with you, but no, Agent Gibbs wasn't the sole motivation behind the change.”

“I don’t want to cross any lines here, so feel free to tell me it’s none of my business, but how did you convince the director to sign off on this?”

“It’s an administrative alteration, Agent DiNozzo. Many directors feel that it’s unnecessary to waste too much time on the finer details of administrative minutiae.”

In other words, they’d slipped it right under her nose. If they’d tried that with Morrow, someone would have informed him by the end of the first day. Gibbs would have known before Greene had even finished typing it up. Shepard might be in the dark for a long time. Tony wondered if Shepard even knew how thoroughly the agency was slipping out of her control.

Tony didn’t let himself hesitate as he returned to the bullpen after seeing Greene off. Cowardice was at least one thing he wasn’t willing to let the team accuse him of. As he expected, they stopped him before he even reached his desk.

“What was that all about?

“Gibbs never made us do this... this... red ribbon stuff.”

Unlike most of the 'but Gibbs never' complaints, this statement was entirely true. That didn’t make it any the less irritating. “Firstly, the process is new, or weren't you listening? And secondly, he should have gone through the old process with you. These concerns are included in your files, so it is in your best interest that your side of the story is also on record.”

“Nonsense,” said Ziva, sniffing. “It is not like we should care what other agencies should think of us.”

Tim crossed his arms. “I didn't see Greene handing you anything. You don’t care yourself, so why should we?”

“Or maybe it was just too heavy for Tony to carry.”

Tony grit his teeth and ignored the sniggering. “I already have my set of paperwork, so if you want assistance in—”

The phone rang with a dead body.

It was not a complex case. A seaman had lost his balance sitting on the railing of a balcony. While they’d had to prove no foul play, the man had been drunk enough to make a vampire fear spontaneous combustion, and it hadn’t taken long even without a fourth team member. Nevertheless, by the time it was over the complaint paperwork was no longer on his team mates’ desks. Tony had lost his chance to encourage them to take it seriously without being confrontational.

They’d gone home already when Abby asked him about it. These days, Tony never knew if Abby was going to expect him to play along as her perfect Gibbs-substitute, or get angry with him for pretending to be Gibbs, but he did his best to keep her happy. There wasn’t much about this conversation that she would like, but he was relieved that at least she seemed more worried than angry.

“They say you’re trying to sabotage their careers.”

“I’ve been trying to save their careers, but they haven’t been making it easy. Imagine this not being taken care of now, and then later it being used as grounds to overturn all their testimony, and all the evidence they’ve ever handled? That would be a disaster.”

Abby flinched. Accusations of that nature were even more of a nightmare for technicians than field agents. “I guess. But this isn’t how Gibbs would handle things.”

Tony said as softly as he could, “Gibbs isn’t always right. And I can’t pull off the same miracles that he can.”

Abby nodded slightly, and Tony was relieved that she seemed to accept his point of view. She paced from one side of her lab to the other. “But this is Ziva and Timmy! I don’t know what to do.”

“You don’t have to do anything, Abby. This is a problem for other people. If you want to support Ziva and Tim by listening to them, it won’t make you any less of a friend to me.”

“Just be here for you?” asked Abby quietly.

Tony pulled her into a hug. “You being here for us is everything that we need.”

“Alright. I just wish none of this had to happen.”

“Me too, Abbs. Me too.”

Tony left her lab some time later to start on his own complaints paperwork, telling himself that it was a good sign they were at least thinking about it, even if they weren't of a mind to ask his advice. He was soon unexpectedly grateful for that. He hadn’t realised just how often he himself would have to defend the indefensible. It wasn’t that he was unskilled at weasel wording. It wasn’t even that he was unpractised – he’d been well taught as a rookie cop: on no account lie about  forensically provable facts; everything else was sales pitch. ‘The driver was acting in such a way as to appear intoxicated’.‘We heard something breaking from within the house’. ‘The suspect appeared to reach for a weapon’. So it wasn’t that he couldn’t teach how to mislead. It was that he had hoped the lessons would never be necessary. 

His notes made that wish seem a fool’s dream. It was an easy lie to say he had done it with the best possible motives, but how often had they slid from wanting the best results for the victims to simply wanting to impress Gibbs? It was starting to look like Agent McGee and Officer David weren't the only ones learning the wrong lessons from their directors looking the other way. Part of him wanted to just put down the bold, unvarnished truth and take whatever punishment he had coming to him. The larger part, and Tony hoped it wasn't simply the self-serving part, didn't want his actions to invite the catastrophe of reopened cases that all this had been started to prevent. Unless he wanted to resign and find employment outside law enforcement, he would have to come to terms with this new insight into his own character: he could not be trusted to maintain the line when encouraged to violate it. If— when— Gibbs came back, he’d have some serious thinking to do.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Michelle Lee will not be appearing in this fic (this part, anyway). I’ve had to remove her side-plot because it distorted the rest of the story. I’ve always thought she got the shortest end of the stick in Gibbs’s return, and writing a fix-it fic (where Tony acknowledges this and therefore is close enough to figure out she’s in trouble) is on my to-do list.


	4. Chapter 4

As the first one to complete the reports (in all of NCIS, as it turned out), Tony was also the first to walk through the interviews with the various liaisons. The first one up was with the FBI, and he really wanted to go well. The director of the FBI had personally assured him that they would honour their debt for the previous fiasco, but it would be unspeakably slimy to use a favour for something like this. He’d never had much contact with the liaison, an Agent Larson, but they knew each other by reputation and Larson was a good guy. By his attitude, Larson liked what he’d heard about Tony, as well. They went through the facts of the case fairly quickly, and Larson didn’t ask any particularly pointed questions. Tony grovelled sufficiently to convey remorse without incriminating himself, and Larson seemed content with that. If working with Gibbs had trained him in anything, it was how to apologise without actually using the words ‘I’m sorry’.

At the end, Larson leaned back and said, “It has been somewhat of a delay since we first raised these, you realise.”

Humour was always a gamble, but Tony thought he had Larson pegged well enough to risk it. “Sure, but think of this: if we’d done it right away, you’d have done this all with Gibbs.”

“You make an excellent point, Agent DiNozzo, but not good enough. If Gibbs had been here, then _I_ wouldn’t have had to handle it at all.”

It only took a second for Tony to put two and two together. “You mean this meeting might have happened between Gibbs and Fornell? Man, I would have paid to see that.”

Greene frowned at them, and Larson raised his hands. “Hey, it wouldn’t be my call. All interactions with Agent Gibbs are done through Agent Fornell and his team.”

“The decisions of another agency are naturally their own business,” said Greene with such painful neutrality that both Tony and Larson squirmed.

Larson coughed and assumed a more professional tone of voice. “While we do hope you cut fewer corners and adhere more closely to proper protocol in future, we accept the extenuating circumstances involved in these cases, and appreciate the clarifications for our files. The FBI officially thanks you for your time.”

A few signatures, and that was it. Once Larson had departed, Tony said, “That went… remarkably easily.”

“He doesn’t want to discourage us from keeping it up,” said Greene dryly. “I’m guessing that they’ll build up as much good will as they can so they can take the hard line with the offenders they’re the most concerned about.”

“I’m going to make a wild guess that those of us who came forward quickly have earned considerable brownie points.”

Greene shrugged. “Co-operation is a great help in allowing them to assume innocence.”

It made sense that the various liaisons had no more interest in stirring up a hornet’s nest than Tony himself did, but it was so rare that people assumed the best of Tony that he honestly hadn’t expected it. Greene seemed to have called it correctly, however, because the other interviews went just as easily. A little time later, and Tony had a clean sheet with the greater law enforcement community.

The same could not be said of the rest of his team.

That wasn’t to say Tony hadn’t seen any positive results – they had stepped back from the line professionally. Their attitudes may have worsened, but at least they did their jobs while on crime scenes. For that small mercy, Tony was willing to disregard the personal. To be honest with himself, he was more relieved than upset that Ziva’s little coy invitations to ‘working suppers’ had ceased, and Tim wasn’t observant enough to come up with any really effective insults in any case.

But he still had a duty to them. Greene had virtually told him that missing their deadlines would cause the other agencies to look at their cases with a more critical eye. “People, you need to file the paperwork and book your appointments, for your own sake. If you don’t contest or justify the complaints made–”

“What do I care about petty little complaints made by idiots? The Mossad would not care about such matters.”

Tony did not for a second believe that Mossad didn’t care if their agents disregarded protocol, but she was probably right that nothing she did in the US would follow her home. That wasn’t true of McGee. Official complaints could prove an insurmountable obstacle to Tim’s not very secret goal of becoming director, and Tim didn’t seem to care. Or at least, not more than he cared about looking weak in front of Ziva.

“McGee, your records will influence your promotion opportunities in future—“

“Your record doesn’t seem to have done you any harm, and it has to be worse than mine. At least I don’t have any sexual harassment complaints.”

Tony breathed in, breathed out, and let it go. It would be a breach of confidence to reveal Ziva’s complaint, and pointless to reveal the lack of his own. Nothing he said would convince Tim he was wrong, and he was fast running out of reasons to keep trying.

Tim continued, “And you aren’t going to try tell me that Gibbs doesn’t have a ton of these things in his own file. Has he ever bothered with it?”

“No,” answered Tony. He didn’t add that Gibbs only made up for his bloody mindedness with the type of excellence that came around once in a generation. Tim should have figured that out for himself. Or perhaps Tim imagined the same was true of his technical skills, considering the way he usually acted about them.

Ziva smirked. “I’m sure that Director Shepard will not concern herself if we do this or not, any more than Gibbs would.”

“Make sure that you’re prepared to live with the consequences of the decision you make,” warned Tony as a last offering, before letting it drop. He had people more worthy of getting a heads-up to speak to.

Balboa listened quietly and then nodded. “I’ll have a word with my team. Thanks, by the way, for gifting us with all this extra paperwork.”

“Hey! Why do you think it’s my fault?”

“Because I’m not an idiot.” Balboa leaned forward and lowered his voice. “How is it going with the Wonder Twins? Have they submitted theirs yet?”

“They’re better, but no win with the paperwork. They’ve ‘subtly’ threatened to go to Shepard if I insist any further.”

“How very classy of them.”

Whatever he felt about them, whatever they did to him, Tony didn’t want to cross the line from seeking advice to simply gossiping about them. He subtly redirected the conversation. “That might make you happy, though. Even odds that she’ll shut down the whole thing because it wasn’t her own idea.”

“I hope not. I mean, I still hate you for it the tedium, don’t get me wrong. But we could really do with better relations with the other law enforcement agencies. It’s a bad sign that I’m starting to go into cross jurisdictional affairs hoping they’ve never heard of us.”

“Ouch,” said Tony. “I mean, with Gibbs that was always kind of a given, but I didn’t realise everyone else was in the same boat.”

“I recently met up with someone who jumped ship, and he really drew my attention to it. There’s always rivalry, so you really have to be outside the system to notice things were worse for us than for other people. Leaving Shepard in ignorance for long enough for us to get through the process is perfectly alright with me.”

Tony hadn’t thought it all the way through to the ultimate conclusions, but this had become bigger than him. Prior to this, he hadn’t seen significant harm in Shepard finding out. Even if she cancelled everything, she’d still have to take official notice of it to do so, which was enough for his purposes. Except improved relationships and added scrutiny were good things, and he ought to be fighting for them regardless of personal advantage.

“We can't keep it from her forever. I expected the cat to be out the bag already. Even if we didn’t have any complainers, I would have thought someone like Alston would have gone up to brag. He always was a teacher’s pet.”

“Might have done, but Alston’s been a bit preoccupied lately. Something about a security conference in Germany.”

Security wasn’t exactly Alston’s area of expertise. “What’s he speaking on? You’d think, if Shepard wasn’t prepared to send you or me, then she’d send no one at all.”

“No idea, but I’m sure Madam Director has her reasons,” said Balboa, with mock dutifulness.

The minor mystery teased at him for a bit, before he returned to his original problem. “Best hurry up your paperwork, and at least get one round in before he gets back. We can’t…”

“We can’t what?”

“Well, just a thought. I just realised I have a favour I can call in, to organise a meeting with the SecNav.”

“You can’t be thinking of going over Shepard’s head. If that backfires, which it probably will, there’s—“

“Don’t worry, I won’t be going over her head. Not exactly.”

“Tony, you—“

“Relax. I have a cunning plan.”

Tony walked away, ignoring Balboa’s objections. A quick phone call, and he had after-work drinks with Larson arranged. The small talk flowed easily, and Tony found himself liking the fibbie more and more.

Larson finished his glass, and made eye contact. “So, not that I’m not enjoying myself, but what’s this all about?”

“The new complaints process. Do you think it’s valuable? Something worth continuing?”

“Not just yes, but hell yes. Why?”

“Because I’m going to ask you to put your name to something. I’ll push it through myself, but I need the official source to be within the FBI. I’d like you to request that the SecNav to pass along official FBI thanks for the recent improvements to Director Shepard.”

“You think that it’s urgent for the SecNav to be made aware of the process?”

Tony grinned. “I think it’s urgent for _Shepard_ to be made aware of it.”

“She doesn’t—of course she doesn’t know. That explains a lot. That’s one recommendation that I will be more than happy to make. Any way of getting a recording of that meeting?”

“Alas, no. That is beyond even my talents. I would love to know how it goes.”

“Ten bucks that she takes full credit for the whole idea.”

“No bet. Do I look like a sucker to you?”

Larson laughed, and they soon called it a night.

It didn’t take long to set the whole thing up, but getting word of the results was more complicated. When a call from Larson interrupted his irritation at Ziva’s time-keeping, he took it eagerly.

“So? Did you hear how it went?”

“Yes, but that’s not what I’m calling about.”

“Okay,” said Tony slowly, waiting for Larson to fill him in.

“I thought you deserved a head’s up. Ziva David has just been accused of assassinating a Mossad target and his two FBI guards. I’m sorry, DiNozzo.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can probably guess from the delay, I battled with this chapter. My original plot just didn’t prove true to character, and I had to end up discarding it, as well as the two following mostly-written chapters. It took me a while to admit that to myself (yes, I am well aware that I have an unhealthy attachment to plotting). This is the new path, and I hope the result doesn’t disappoint.

Tony knew this was his fault. If the FBI hadn’t had all those complaints in the forefront of their minds, they wouldn’t have jumped so quickly to the assumption that Ziva was the assassin. Tony was practically vibrating out of his chair by the time Larson showed up at the yard. Unfortunately, Larson had  _ Sacks, _ of all people, in tow. Sacks charged up the stairs to the director’s office, ignoring Tony’s scowl. Tony waved Tim to remain seated, and went to join Larson. 

Aware of how whiny he was going to sound, Tony asked, “did you  _ have  _ to bring him with you?” 

Larson snorted. “You know full well they send Fornell’s team to deal with the MCRT. I was only included today because of our recent ‘good working relationship’, not because anyone finally realised that this is actually supposed to be my job.”

Tony grit his teeth in a pained smile. “Please don’t tell me you mean that Sacks is the one in charge.”

“Full points for deduction. And it’s not like your director is likely to object, considering how she’s likely to feel about us now.”

Tony tore his mind away from Sacks and Ziva at that. They were a problem, but Larson was his responsibility. “Shit, you’re being affected by that? I didn’t mean to get you into trouble, Larson. I can see what I can--”

Larson waved it away. “It isn’t trouble. My people just think I’m a bit smarter at the game than I actually am. We both would have won ten bucks, by the way. I hear that when SecNav told her he’d been worried about interdepartmental cooperation and was pleased to see it being addressed, she grabbed all the credit like Elmyra with a new pet.”

Tony snickered at the mental image. He wondered if he could persuade Abby to do a photo-manip of that. He rather thought a good portion of the office would find it equally apt.

Larson continued, “So she can’t come after me without looking like an idiot. You, on the other hand...”

“Eh,” said Tony, waving it away in turn. “She’s finding reasons to punish me no matter what I do. I might as well actually be guilty for something and gain some satisfaction out of it. Besides, she’s very close to Ziva. She won’t start anything until this matter is resolved. What  _ is _ going on there, anyway?”

“I’ll leave it to the proper briefing, but it looks bad, DiNozzo. Brace yourself.” 

They let themselves into the director’s office, and Tony chose to prop up a wall rather than argue his rank with regards to the remaining chairs. Even in the ensuing briefing, he kept his mouth shut and let Larson handle most of it. He knew that Gibbs would have fought to keep the investigation in-house, but he wasn’t Gibbs, and he actually thought a joint investigation was a fairly generous compromise on the side of the FBI. What wasn’t generous -- what wasn’t generous at  _ all  _ \-- was that they insisted on the Idiot Sacks taking the lead of the whole thing. 

But he would just have to suck it up. Tony’s job was to protect his teammate no matter what their current differences were, and since he couldn’t bull through it, he would have to play nice with the man. Tony was at least relieved that he could honestly say he knew she hadn’t done it. He was a little more ashamed about the reason for that, because it wasn’t due to his faith in her. It was due to a rather unkind belief that  _ Mossad  _ lacked faith in her, too.

Dealing with all the paperwork had reignited all those questions he’d originally had about why she’d ever been assigned to them. While the NCIS was an important part of counter-terrorism, and some teams did have extensive interactions with Israeli citizens, the DC MCRT itself wasn’t, and didn’t. Ziva served so little function as a liaison officer that she herself tended to forget she wasn’t an NCIS agent. His original suspicions had been proven wrong, but that didn’t change the fact that no organisation would send one of their best agents just to waste time playing cop in a job almost guaranteed not to benefit them. If she wasn’t a spy, then the only reasonable conclusion left was that they didn’t consider her to be much of an agent at all. If that was true, then they would never have trusted her with a mission as sensitive as the one being described.

 

* * *

 

 

Later, when Sacks showed off the incriminating footage to him and Tim, and challenged Tony to explain exactly why he thought she was innocent, Tony didn’t admit to any of that.

“Look, S..acks,” said Tony. “Let’s put aside whether she’s capable of it, or whether she would be willing to do it if ordered. Let’s think of the practicalities. Mossad has spent a lot of political capital putting her into this position. She’s here, out in the open, being good PR for them. And  _ that _ is the most sensitive of black ops. I’m sure you’ve dealt with that type of thing before.”

Actually, Tony was pretty sure no one would have trusted Sacks with anything of the sort, either planning or analysing, but playing nice was playing nice. Both Ziva and Larson were relying on his undercover skills to keep Sacks pacified.

Tony continued with the disguised lesson. “You bring in an operative that’s unknown to any principal player, or better yet, an operative known to be working for someone else, and then you slip them out of sight as soon as they’re done. You would never expose a long term operative and endanger the entire face of your operation for such low return.” 

“They might not have expected things to have gone this badly. Or maybe they didn’t know about it either. It could have been personal for David.”

“What,” asked Tony, as sarcastically as he could. “On her way to work, she just suddenly decided to bomb someone?” Tony kept all memory of Brian Dempsey dying in an elevator carefully out of his expression.

Sacks shrugged. “This isn’t a goddamn Agatha Christie, DiNozzo. We don’t start with the motive. We start with the evidence. And that, hombre, is evidence.”

Tony followed the pointing finger to the plasma, and concealed a sigh. Sacks, unfortunately, had a point. If these were strangers to him, interrogating Ziva would definitely be his first call. He frowned. “Tim, play it again.”

Sacks bristled.“What are you looking for? I guarantee you, it isn’t photoshopped.”

Tony stopped himself from giving that the answer it deserved, and instead said neutrally, “I’m trying to figure out what she’s pointing her firearm  _ at _ .”

“Sorry?”

“Look at where she is on that street. The bomb, her car, all the interesting stuff is behind her. So why is she going that way?”

Tim obediently restarted the footage, and this time they kept their eyes away from the spectacle of the car crash. “I think she’s following that guy in the grey suit. Can you get a better shot of him?”

Tim ducked behind the temporarily borrowed equipment, muttering and clicking, before he answered. “Not with those sunglasses and beard. He knows where the camera is, too -- he’s looking away from it too consistently to be co-incidence, and he’s completely out of frame when she comes to a stop.”

“Did we get any other footage of the street?” Tony asked Sacks.

“If I had footage, I would be showing it to you. That’s all we’ve got.”

“Damn. But at least it shows there’s more going on here that we need to investigate, you must agree.”

“I tell you what, DiNozzo. I’ll keep an open mind about Ziva’s innocence if you keep an open mind about her guilt. But either way, she’s currently obstructing a federal investigation. She needs to come in.”

Tony gave up planting any more doubt as a lost cause. They did need Ziva to come in, for her own sake as much as theirs. Further arguments could wait until they heard what she had to say. “I agree. But she won’t contact me or Tim, so you’re not going to have any luck by standing over us. If she did plant that bomb, she’s going to be contacting her father. If she didn’t, she’s going to be contacting Gibbs. If you want to get her side of the story, that’s where you’re going to want to concentrate.”

Actually Tony was pretty sure she’d contact both, and see who reacted more positively to her pleas. Since Tony was also sure that Gibbs would be the one more willing to be her knight in shining armour, so it wasn’t an incriminating statement for him to make.

Sacks glared at him suspiciously, but he couldn’t deny a sensible course of action any more than Tony could. He nodded sharply and went off to make arrangements, leaving the half-team alone to work through the evidence themselves. Sack’s people had commandeered most of the space to analyse Ziva’s machines, but Tony had worked in noisier and more cramped conditions every day in the police force, and for once Tim wasn’t whining about anything.

 

* * *

 

 

They were all still at it the next day. Nothing to prove Ziva did it, but no one cared about beyond all reasonable doubt for an espionage charge. And Tony could argue until he was blue in the face that her presence actually suggested that she hadn’t known about the bomb, but for her to be there coincidentally stretched human credulity. Without Mr Grey Suit to explain what she was doing there, she was an embarrassing oddity for the Mossad. Accidents tended to happen to embarrassing oddities. 

Tim, early and more engaged than he had been since Gibbs had left, was working just as hard at his own corner. Tony told himself it was ridiculous to be upset that Tim was doing his job well and without complaint in difficult circumstances, but it served to highlight just how much Tim had been phoning it in the last few weeks. Tony shook his head and returned to more important things. He could nurse his anger and his guilt when Ziva was safe.

“Got it!”

Tony waited a second. He kept the irritation out of his voice and prompted, “Got what, McGee?

“Got the footage,” said Tim proudly. “Private camera from a Looky Lou racing towards the scene. Someone was trying to sell it to the media. It doesn’t show Ziva herself, but it does show a guy in a grey suit, sunglasses and a beard walking away from the scene. And better yet, he takes his glasses off for a few seconds.”

“Good job, McGee! Way to go.”

DiNozzo summoned Sacks over with a jerk of the head, and by the time he arrived, Tim had a still up on a plasma. 

Tony moved towards it almost involuntarily. “I know that guy. A former associate of Ari Haswari. Something beginning with ‘E’. Probie, see if you can find our lists from that case.”

Sacks looked interested despite himself. “Why a  _ former  _ associate? They have a falling out?”

“More like they both fell dead, I seem to recall.”

Tim stopped clicking on things, and a headshot for Namir Eschel appeared next to the still. Nobody needed computer analysis to agree it was the same person.

“Huh. Seems like he got better,”  said Tony.

Sacks said instantly, “got better and came to ask help from his old friend Ziva David.”

Tony replied just as fast, “or came to set her up in order to get revenge for Ari’s death.”

They glared at each other and then tipped their heads slowly to acknowledge the other had a point.

“But,” said Tim, looking from one to the other and sounding hopelessly confused, “Ari was killed by Gibbs. Ziva had nothing to do with it.”

Tony and Sacks shared an eyeroll, and then suddenly remembered they hated each other. After a beat of silence, Sacks made a go ahead gesture. Tony patted McGee on the shoulder. “Yeah, sure, probie. We’ll go with that.”

“We can find out why Eschel’s here when we haul him in for questioning.” Sacks turned to one of his minions. “Get a BOLO out on him, ASAP. Top priority. Everyone else, back to work.”

Tony rolled his eyes by himself at Sack’s little power play at including Tony and Tim in that order, but his heart had lifted. Eschel’s presence didn’t prove Ziva’s innocence, but it opened up the investigation in far more promising directions. They’d get this. Now, if only they could get Ziva to co-operate.


End file.
